iPad Course Delivery Platform Lets Users Customize Multimedia Lessons

A new mobile course delivery platform, Junction, has just launched for iPad. The app and corresponding service lets educators create or customize courses using materials such as text, video, and online learning resources.

The platform, which also has a web-based counterpart, has partnered with BBC Worldwide Learning and CBS News to make available portions of their content libraries. According to the company, there’s a big focus on video resources, but instructors can add assessments, photographs, animations, and other materials to their courses, and students can take notes and collaborate on projects within the platform.

Instructors can either adapt existing courses for their students or else design their own from scratch. Initially, pre-made courses are offered in Sociology, U.S. History, and Macroeconomics.

Founded by a former McGraw Hill Education executive, the service has already been piloted by several colleges and universities, including Bronx Community College, Hofstra University, Montclair State University, and Reynolds Community College.

So far, instructors have used the platform to create a one-off music appreciation lesson, a chemistry lab that reported on student interactions with another app, and a specially-designed course at Bronx Community College incorporating learning materials and feedback questions that the instructor used as a way to gauge student response to his lesson. (Additional examples can be found online.)